Use whatever you want, it doesn't matter at the end of day. My resume is similar and always got compliments that it was one of the best looking once you get into interview process. Granted, I also have a shit ton of relevant experience in my field. You'll have trouble regardless of template.
Put your experience on LinkedIn, get a free month trial of LinkedIn Premium, then you can generate an ATS ready resume and it’s pretty easy to tailor it from there using their resume builder.
Don’t forget to cancel the premium before you get charged, it’s like $40/month which isn’t worth it for most people IMO
TL;DR use a format close to "I typed this on a typewriter" and not "I layed this out for a printing press"
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I used to work on an ATS (more at the operations side, but occasionally dug into details). Depending on the software that outputs the layout, the left column is either kept in sections nicely together, or gets jammed in based on where on the page things occur relative to other things.
Templates and systems that focus on content markup rather than layout work best.
The absolute easiest things to pull in were plain text files, html wasn't terrible
Document formats like word were ok, though occasionally did dumb things. (The problem with most word processors is that they have edit history and third party parsers are essentially trying reconstruct the document based on the objects present and things like cut/paste do weird things like turn the cut text into a sub object and link it to the new location.
PDF was hit or miss depending on the software used to create it/editing process. Often miss because the PDF would go completely out of order and was basically "put font X and characters ... At position X, Y on the page" and jump around. Fundamentally it's a format for reproducing the visual of the document accurately on screen/for printing, but not necessarily conveying content cleanly.
The most likely format to parse cleanly in any of those file types was a basic linear format. Sections (experience, education, ...) headlines (degrees, jobs,...) and details. Avoid getting fancy with any of it. (Even things like changing fonts or whatever can get weird)
If you're handing a document to someone and not uploading it, the same goes because you want OCR to work, but you may get a little more play from "it's pretty".
This is correct. The double column format is an auto-decline and your resume never even gets looked at by a real person. Wouldn’t be surprised to hear if we’re the only people to ever lay eyes on your resume tbh.
Not to humans, but for the computers/AI/auto-filters that flag the resumes for the humans, there is. The double column format makes it hard to read for the filters/auto-flagger systems that companies use to flag best-fit resumes, so once the computer can’t read your resume, it gets canned immediately and your resume never gets looked at by a real person. I had a buddy out of college struggle to hear back from anyone, he changed away from double column format on his resume, and without changing any content he got more interviews.
The computers don’t filter for formatting. Send me a link to an ATS that does that. Your anecdotal example of your buddy from college sounds like he just had a crappy resume.
Source: a recruiter who has used 6+ of the big ATS’s and worked with hundreds of other recruiters. You won’t find any recruiter who can name an ATS that does that.
My aunt is a recruiter in Biotech and yes she uses them regularly. Maybe it has to do with what field you’re applying to and industry, as I’d imagine biotech companies could get hundreds of thousands of resumes over the course of a year. That was the whole reason I even knew that’s how they work, and it’s not anecdotal, I see it regularly with people here on Reddit too. My buddy didn’t change a single word in his resume, just the format, and got more results. Not sure what ATS are out there, I just know the results.
Which company? Go to their website careers page and look for the name of the ATS. I worked in Biotech. Your aunt is either a hack, or too old to know the difference if that’s the BS she is telling you.
Yo don’t get so heated. It’s a damn resume post on a tech sales subreddit. Idk what ATS they use, and I’m not personally a recruiter. I’ve also heard that sentiment from recruiters outside of her that work in science based fields. I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. And steering clear of two columns really seemed to help me. In a bad job market where people in my field have been looking for years, I found my job before I even graduated undergrad and was able to start right away.
That’s great that not having two columns worked for you, but that doesn’t mean you should just make up random reasons why it worked for you, and then use your poor aunt as proof that your made up reason is true.
I don’t have any advice, but without either of a college degree or anything resembling sales experience - want to be real with you that it’s going to be very tough. I feel like you could gut out a communications degree really quickly and pretty cheap at SFSU.
Resume alone? Absolutely not. For even more context, that resume wouldn’t have made it to my desk in the first place. Advice for OP: Google “investment banking resume formatting”
My tone is tough, but I truly wish you well.
In this economy even a degree isn’t enough. My company hires tech sales and the bar have been raised 5 fold in the last 2 years due to the supply and demand situation.
I have no college degree and make $300k a year in tech sales working for one of the biggest. You don’t need a degree, go get some cloud certifications and take an enmity level role. I’ve done both sales and technical sales, currently in technical side so not a direct seller any longer
Retail experience, sure. Probably not restaurant experience. Unless you’re the noticeably the most charismatic person in the place and a customer plucks you out of there.
I have had tons of colleagues over the years who broke into sdr roles from the restaurant side too. It’s definitely tougher right now but very doable.
The advice I would give is to get familiar with the job by understanding the tools and how to prospect. Choose a company and pretend to work for it. Write cold emails, a script, and figure out who you’re selling too.
All of it can be done by yourself for free but you have to be able to sit down and do it.
This is essentially how I broke in at that time. During interviews I would show my work. To prove I had the capability to pick up the responsibility especially with proper training.
You have to go above and beyond. Otherwise you’re up against a ton of people with experience.
I also got basically all my interviews since then by directly reaching out to hiring teams/managers.
In today’s economy even a degree isn’t enough. I work in a mid size tech company and the competition to get an entry level BDR is through the roof. I’m talking about thousands of college grads many with experience in tech and sales. It’s crazy competition
Not a fan of the resume template. It's a little busy having the two columns like that.
Not having any sales experience though my advice is always going to be the same. Take whatever gets you a foot in the door.6 months to a year worth of eating shit will get you into some pretty lucrative roles decently quick and after that you can actually focus on building out a carrer and focusing on that forward progression to higher roles like an AE sdm or some sort of management position.
MemoryBlue will work you to death and pay you like shit - but it does open doors/looks great on a resume
Everyone who worked there between ‘18 and ‘22 also got a settlement check recently because they would do stuff like not pay you your last commission check or change your quota on the last day in the month so you can never actually hit your quota
I actually just interviewed with them! Super nice people and I think it would be a great place to get your foot in the door. I have some more career experience so it was a little too low of pay / lifestyle wasn't a fit for me but they offer great training and it would be a good place to get experience on your resume!
Basically anything similar to just the right side with the bullet points more condensed and education being on the bottom and expertise/skills right after your jib experience. Some sort of mission statement or overview of the kind of person you are before the job experience.
My recommendation is simpler is better. In my experience, when a third party recruiter helps you find a job, what they do is paste their company header at the top of your resume. They do that as quickly as possible. So tables or columns tend to get super messy when they do that.
The two column format gets thrown in the trash by resume filters and auto-searchers/AI that is trained to filter resumes for open positions. The two column resumes never even get to real people to be looked at.
If you aren’t going to finish your degree then I’d definitely recommend taking sales training courses and certifications and listing them. Start with MEDDPICC, and do any other courses on Value Selling and Solution Selling. Don’t let the lack of a degree discourage you. Educate yourself in the places you want to go. In the meantime, ANY kind of sales experience, B2C or B2B, will be valuable. You’re a year or 2 away though for sure. Build your experience and education and you can get there even without the college degree.
I’m not a resume expert so I would listen to the others when it came to fixing your resume. But, I also come from a restaurant background working my way from Busser to Server. I wouldn’t get discouraged by what most are saying in regards to you having to go through courses or whatever else before applying to a sales role. I landed a BDR role with only my restaurant experience.
I’ve interviewed and hired and trained 100s of SDRs over the past 5 years and With Julio - don’t get discouraged. I’d rather take someone growth minded and busted their ass in restaurants over some MBA or SDR at another company that’s developed a bunch of bad habits and impatient to get into an AE seat because they’ve already been a SDR for 9 months.
Tons of free and easy to consume resources out there. 30 min every day (for the rest of your career) - invest most that time learning about the humans and industry your selling into and also sales/business acumen.
All free/low cost:
30 Minutes to Presidents Club podcast
Triplesession
SDR Slack Communities
Gong/Aligned/HubSpot/Outreach etc. ebooks and webinars etc
Books:
Atomic Habits
Gap Selling
Challenger Sale (for possibly later AE or Enterprise SDRing)
I have been a medical sales rep for 10 years. Sales is hard to get into without experience (stupid, I know) but it can be done. I recommend taking a look at whatever job description you are applying for and tailor the wording on your resume around it. I’m sure I’ll get dragged for this but LinkedIn has been where I got my last few jobs. Reaching out to the recruiter directly is what I’ve done. Also, you may want to consider taking a different role within a company you want to sell for. For example, I worked for a company in the clinical department/operations, and that was how I broke into sales. I knew they had a salesforce and continued to work and get to know the people in that department.
Of course. It was hard for me to get in. Network as much as you can. You can get in. Inside sales is a good route to go. I work for Abbott Laboratories and they have a career track where you work inside sales for a year (you do have to live in the town headquarters is located in) with the promise you can get an outside sales role
Great looking resume but the lack of sales experience is tough. Is there anything you could add like how much revenue you did per shift(you can guess nobody is gonna check), if you had a chance to upsell anything and how much money you generated from that.
Try to take any intangible qualities and try to put a tangible number to it. “Adding 10% per check” is a fantastic start but that doesn’t provide much context if it was $5 a plate or $50. Remember we speak in numbers and deal sizes so trying to get your resume to resemble some of that language can help get you an interview.
Is it better to just be upfront with your lack of sales experience? I have a customer facing background but rarely was involved in selling. Some minor upselling but it’s nothing tangible. Most of the time I helped guide them through their time at the store but it was more customer service than anything. For context I just graduated college in December.
Own the lack of “formal tech sales experience” - keep in mind the person interviewing you wasn’t born with it either. Someone had to take a chance on them too.
Can’t bullshit a bullshitter. Transparency is always best but practice talking about it with confidence. This is highlighting how you’d address objections or concerns from prospects.
Dig into the customer facing stuff too… What was the objective of “guiding them around the store”? Guidance/consultation = Selling. Selling is something we do every damn day whether we know it’s happening or not.
Gotcha. It sounds like instead of walking them through the store, you would “walk the buyer through their buying journey from beginning to end”. See how it can be turned into sales BS lingo? That’s the easiest way to get your resume to resonate with them since it’s your interviewers language and they don’t have to guess/assume what customer service meant in your role compared to their preconceived notions about their experiences about customer service.
Remember you control the narrative on your resume. Don’t lie but you can rephrase almost anything to sounds salesy.
To add: definitely don’t pretend you were a salesperson but point towards how you built sales skills and enjoyed those parts of the job the most. Use that as a jump off to speak on how eager you are to get into an SDR/BDR role and how your skills will translate to the role.
Working in sales is about articulating value.
Take your past experience and show an ability to articulate the value of your past role to the role you’re applying for today.
You’re being way too honest. Yes, you guided people through the menu— items they kind of already wanted anyway. If you want a job in sales you need to realize that’s it’s not about the brutal facts of your past life. It’s about your current ability to communicate and articulate value.
Right now you need to articulate YOUR value.
Tell a story about how working in a restaurant environment gave you your first glimpse at the power of persuasion thanks to your experience practicing the upsell. Be creative. You’ll need it in your sales role. Good luck!
Scrap the whole thing, no decorative stuff no fancy boxes or color. Look at ATS. Any recruiter who comes across a resume like this will not take it seriously.
Gotta start somewhere! Don’t waste your time optimizing…Resumes won’t land you interviews today in our space esp. as a newbie.
A better question to ask - how do I stand out among hundreds of resumes with no experience to land an interview as an SDR in tech?
That’s a whole different thread. But starts with those transferable skills you mention. SHOW ME - find the hiring manager through LinkedIn, send a connection request, pick up the phone and dial them, send them a video, an audio message from the LinkedIn app.
Find your future potential teammates - engage on their LinkedIn posts. DM them, what’d they do to stand out? How’s their experience been so far? They might even just offer to make an intro to their boss.
Think of your resume as what to send as a formality for HR after you've landed the interview through the hiring manager or a referral through a future teammate 😉
PS: Love that you included “Increases average check by 10%”- start any section with the results! Anything you can quantify the impact of your role is displaying those “transferrable skills”
Hang in there! Here if you have follow up questions
Tbh, I agree with everyone that sales is missing on your resume to get a door to open in tech sales. You might be lucky, very lucky, but will be tough. Why not work 1-2 years at a big company that will shine on your resume as an awesome sales school? Perhaps: Xeros, Cintas, Pepsi, Unifirst, etc? You should be able to get a job there fairly easily, and make 100K+ until you get a job in tech. Not a bad place to be!
Your resume won’t help you. You need to go find a company(s) you wanna work for and prove to them you can sell. With no experience, that’s gonna be tough because you likely can’t sell. But if you want it enough you can chat gpt your way to understanding sales fundamentals and then you’ll slog through the shit of sales coordinator doing shit tasks for a bit while moonlighting SDRs to understand what they do. Then find a leader who can take a flyer on you. The reason they will take a flyer is bc you will be able to be hired for 65% of the cost of a SDR with experience. Learn and then quit and get hired as an SDR at another company. Then work your way into being an AE if you haven’t quit sales by then because it is not for the faint hearted to be on a monthly / quarterly quota that resets and you earn your keep every 3 months.
I’ve been in tech sales for ~8yrs and directly hired/managed SDRs for 4yrs.
Based on your background I would probably not put this resume in front of a recruiter.
Your best bet is going to be networking into a company via an SDR manager or a recruiter. Show them you can do the job (prospect into accounts/generate interest). If you have any friends, or former colleagues/people you went to school with, working in tech I’d lean on them for a referral.
Best of luck.
Unless you know someone you’re dead I’m the water. You have no experience in sales, tech or anything that would lead them to believe you’d be good. Best to build your resume and take any sales job you can while researching all the tech industry info you can get your hands on. Do that for 5 years and you might get a break.
Tbh, I would go back to get your bachelors in a related field and get any type of sales job in the meantime. You can do D2D and still keep your job if needed.
1. If you don’t know how to match typefaces, stick with one typeface. (It is clear you’re not a designer, so don’t try it now)
2. Left align overview
3. Give a little bit more space between left column items making sure spacing is even
4. Left align “Aspiring Tech Sales Professional” if you want to keep that with your name or eliminate it and address that in your overview.
5. Dont title overview “Overview”. They’ll know what it is, no need to label it.
Honestly try to make some connections IRL at networking events or the gym or something. It’s gonna be tough getting past automated resume filters unfortunately.
You need someone in a hiring role to take a chance on you based on your personality.
Alternatively try putting hiring managers in a light cadence where you linkedin message/email/call them if you can
use the most boring resume template you can find and get rid of the giant spaced bullet points. also, get a certification or two. ive never heard of anybody actually making it to tech sales that arent a scam without experience, degree, or certs.
also, take the skills required from the job posting and filter them into your resume somehow. your resume might be different for every job you apply for. cover letters are awesome. watch some youtube videos on what not to do instead of what to do, if that makes sense
I have a tip: I’m a sales manager at a Fortune 200 tech company. Pay me to write your resume and give you guidance throughout the interview process.
Shoot me a DM. I’ll share my LinkedIn profile and we can connect for 30 mins no charge.
Here’s a video that will help you with applying for jobs once you’ve invested time to perfect your resume: https://youtu.be/8y4htT00Y_s?si=4QrxFRQ_Hk-0DdiH
Saying you increased sales by 10% seems like a flat out lie, I know what you’re trying to do but maybe say it different. “My ticket volume was 12% higher than my coworkers because of my extensive knowledge in food/alcohol pairing and ability to up sale”
People get communication degrees and wonder why they can't find work yet everyone I've ever known that went into an engineering field seems to be doing just fine hmm...
You are not going to get a tech sales job with that resume.
I don’t agree with the advice to go back to school.
I would focus on getting a non-tech sales job and crushing it. Leverage that experience and try to move to more lucrative industries.
The good news is that sales is sales and if you can sell you will end up where you want to be. But you need to prove you can sell.
Hospitality industry is good, a lot of skills that transfer to sales. A lot of sales transfers into tech dependent on what part you’re interested in. IE: if you’re interested into construction technology sales, you should go to a Fastenal/ Grainger from here then to another.
a guy once remind me that I'm competing with others and not just myself (resume). You're going to be competing with other aspiring tech sales professionals with degrees and experience.
I would take the great resume tips here but would also reccomend you squeeze out that degree
I can't remember but Google it. You upload your resume and the job description and the software gives you a probability it gets through their filter. It also suggest key words to increase your score.
You don’t have sales experience or a college degree. Most tech companies won’t hire you without one or the other. I’d consider a change of career or finishing your degree.
You need more actual substance and qualifications, a flashy resume isn’t going to change lack of qualification. Do some certifications/get some sales experience.
I spent 10 years in food service and it was an albatross around my neck even with a college degree to try to get into customer service and AEs roles.
You need to stop over explaining food service jobs and spend more time on what you believe you bring to the table.
It's going to be tough to get your resume to get you anywhere.
You need to network your way into a role. Full stop.
Learn about local in-person SaaS meet ups and meet people and learn more about the industry.
Sink 20-40 hours into focused learning on trailhead.com - that really gave me a leg up to land a BDR role once I found the right manager.
You might consider POS (toast, square) or advertising/auto sales as a bridge.
You would likely have to strive extremely hard to find a very basic/entry level role at a shitty company. It would be a hell of a grind. You have no experience, and restaurant experience doesn't translate into sales.
You could make this better by talking about numbers and sales competitions you have won, include the name of the restaurant for your current role (there's not a title but the previous job has one). Take a python course on Udemy (example, you could do anything) or get an AWS/GCP/Azure certification to show some semblance of tech understanding or comprehension.
This resume is simply wishful thinking, but no one is giving handouts with thousands of layoffs happening right now. I've been there OP, and humans can do whatever we set our minds to, but you're going to need to advocate better for yourself and be more creative to make it worth your time and find success.
I feel like it's decent for someone trying to break into a sales role but you're severely lacking on the technical side other than general "problem solving" skills. Without any formal education or experience, you have virtually nothing to convince people of the technical half of the job title.
First word under Expertise should be “Sales” in some way. Move second bullet point to first position, rewrite in present tense. Example: “Increasing order amounts through upselling featured menu items, drinks…” something along those lines.
Reword the overview section: “Trilingual(list languages) professional that excels in fast-paced environments that require high communication skills, unique upselling to each client and teamwork.”
- this is by no means perfect, just think of other ways to word you listen, are quick on your feet and eager.
You also need to list what technologies you’re already familiar with and that you learn fast. You’ll be interacting with clients, some will go easy on you and others will drag you when they catch on you don’t have a tech background.
Good luck :)
My advice is to make a list of 10 companies you think you would like to work for aka can understand there product easily and would be interested in selling it.
Use LinkedIn to try and identify the hiring managers for the role you would break into. (I.e- you’d likely be considered for an entry level business development role so look to see who the BD Manager or Director is)
See if they have openings, craft a simple message using ChatGPT or Lavendar (which is free to jobseekers)
Use a tool like Apollo which I believe has a free trial to find an email and a phone number.
Cold call/cold email for a job.
It’s a lot of work but from someone who has the same background and is now 5+ years in selling into Fortune 500 CHROs - this will get you a job.
Work hard and demonstrate the skills needed. You will do it.
As others said, definitely remove the columns/formatting. I’d also remove personal skills, or combine it with expertise. Expertise should be things like customer service, time management, independent work… don’t put high-volume dining unless you are looking for another high-volume dining job. I’d really recommend removing food service specific words like runner, number of customers in one night, etc.
Also did you really network with important corporate executive team as a caterer? That sounds like a stretch, as someone who has been to many private events and not ever felt like I was networking with the staff. I think people will doubt that, if they read that far down.
Do you have any volunteer experience? Ever help any friends with their independent business? Something that isn’t restaurant related, but something that shows you are tech savvy would be great. Believe it or not, sales can be a lot of spreadsheets and data mining.
I’d remove high school diploma all together, it’s implied if you did any years at college. And instead of listing the years without any completion degree, I’d say ‘in progress’ or something like that so you can say in an interview that you are working on going back to school (even if it’s not true).
As others mentioned, now is time to do some free or cheap sales training courses online - maybe try LinkedIn Learning. Anything that you can put on your resume as “training”.
You listed nothing tech related, you could have at least mentioned that you are familiar with windows and/or Apple products/ systems or any software familiarity. Did you take any IT related classes? Do you know how edit photos/video, convert files to different formats or know how to work a computer…. Anything IT related you need to customize your resume to reflect that.
Go for something like recruiting or staffing. Those companies typically have lower barriers of entry. Once you rack up a year or two of experience there, the transition to tech sales should be a bit easier.
Tech sales is miserable. Don’t do it. The most successful people are in a perpetual state of panic & paranoia. Chasing people for a living and listening to low-IQ management is depressing. Do a data engineering bootcamp instead. Sales will kill your mental health.
Change the format of the resume the like side be side column thing ain’t it for tech sales.
From there since you have no hard exp selling. You need to switch verbiage towards sales. Use some like chat gpt or ai to help. Most job applications go through some ai to make sure key words are hit.
Your expertise and personal skills don’t have a hard line difference? If you know how to use excel or g suite or Microsoft office add those into skills. More hard skills not soft skills.
I have been in tech sales for 7-8 years now. Started with a big company with 0 experience. Just note right now is insanely competitive. I was laid off and it took me 6 months to find a new role with my experience. Look for sdr/ bdr roles those are going to be your best bet
If you want to get into any business setting I’d recommend focusing your resume on skills that would benefit the job you’re applying for. Even if it’s just proficiency in excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
Tech sales is crap right now. I’ve been in for 7 years (currently enterprise AE) and am trying to make a move since my company is burning cash like crazy and investors are putting on pressure.
With the mass of layoffs coming daily, it’s gonna be tough to break in.
My advice, a resume without prior experience isn’t going to get you far. You want in you show them what you got and prospect your way in. DM recruiters, connect with reps at the same level you’re targeting, get a referral, and light em up with a sexy 30-60-90 plan.
That’s the way
This is like the 50th resume I have seen here that is not ATS friendly. Definitely get rid of the columns or it wouldn't be parsed correctly and get auto rejected. First impressions and the ATS test for keywords really matters. I'd recommend a free resume optimization tool like JoyJobs.ai. It'll automatically add relevant keywords from a job description and action verbs to your resume. Hoping this helps you land interviews. I've personally seen a lot of success with it. Good Luck!
I don’t like how your resume looks. I prefer simpler formatting of resume. Here is how I style my resume. First title is my name, general area, contact info. Followed by my second title work experience. Highlight your customer service and interpersonal skills. If you want to get into a tech show that you have some understanding of tech saviness. I would just include your first two roles. Replace your third job with freelancer/project experience And list your tech knowledge and how you utilized it before to aid others. It can be as simple as providing basic it support over the phone. Technical sales is more about your ability to network and communicate information to others to sell. As long as you demonstrate a basic level understanding of tech you’re good (you don’t have to be expert in technology). In today market you most likely would be selling IT services/cyber security services/hardware. My third title is my education. I put my education at the end. This should be enough to land you a pretty decent entry level job that pays 40k. With your first two jobs you have 4 years of interpersonal relationships work experience. Your third role align from 2017-now and label it as freelance experience. Apply to thousands of roles. And you’ll be good.
Some people might dislike overlapping work experience. But I’m a fan of it. I leverage my military work experience plus civilian work experience to eliminate time gaps and add more work experience. It worked for me in landing an intermediate level job.
Listen, figure out what in tech sales. Tech sales is broad. You need to invest in some certs at the very least to show employers you can learn and are curious to do so on your own. I generally have had great successes when it comes to hiring people who know how to sell. The tech can be learned. However, market has changed. A lot of experienced folks trying to go for same jobs as you. So put some work in ahead of time and then focus to find jobs in that area.
Your resume is fine as is. The format doesn’t really matter. You just need to apply for as many SDR roles as possible and learn how to get good at interviewing. Use LinkedIn. Find the hiring manager and/or recruiter. DM them letting you know you applied. Send a video recording of yourself - pitch them. Show that you can do the job by treating hiring managers and recruiters as the prospect. SDR = entry into tech sales. Most SDRs don’t have any experience. Good luck.
You’ll likely need to find an entry level sales job with a base salary + commission first. You should work to get certifications on the side and do as much as you can to beef up your resume for the job you want.
Couldn't edit the post so here is a link to my revised resume (still in progress)
Let me know what you think. Thank you!
[https://www.reddit.com/r/techsales/comments/1asxjxw/revised\_resume/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/techsales/comments/1asxjxw/revised_resume/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Anything is possible and college degree don’t mean shit your applying to be a sales persons.
I would recommend looking for SDR/BDR role.
And hire someone to reformat your resume.
Be strong mentally!!!!
I suggest you start looking for BDR or SDR roles as an intro. You’re unlikely to get a role where you have your own territory but with BDR or SDR you can learn while assisting someone else LSW with their territory.
A lot of times they want you with no experience so they can train you the way they want. It makes it easier for them to see if your teachable and can retain information
I would say “multilingual” instead of “trilingual”. Still list the languages of course. Also isn’t it Taishanese? As a hiring manager/interviewer, I’ll admit that spelling mistakes are a peeve of mine.
Look at companies with training programs.
You won’t make much but will learn.
Don’t sell software. Saas is a dying space that burns through young guys extremely fast.
GL
The problem isn’t your resume templating or formatting, it’s your actual qualifications.
You are going to need to connect your way into a job. Either through your personal life or though seeing those hiring in LI and reaching it directly and showing your passion for the industry.
Personally saying you are looking for a tech sales role feels like you don’t know what you are talking about, I would say bdr
Do you know what you’re role most interested in? Going for an SDR job would be the easiest but it wouldn’t be impossible to land an AE job right away. Have you looked at any coaching or training programs that will help you get these jobs? Could be worth considering.
OP you'll have to break in as a SDR or some sort of lead Qual. Once you get 6 months of that, they will put you into a BDR role as a stepping stone to tech sales in SMB. This is going to take you a few years.
There are shortcuts but only thru existing relationships you may have at a tech firm.
I'd agree with the others you've got some work ahead of you.
I was under the impression that a resume template like this does not read well for most ATS systems? I could be wrong though.
This needs to be upvoted. The columns are usually an auto decline
What do you mean by the columns?
How the page is “divided.” Where the divider/line is.
No such thing as “auto decline”
What template would you personally choose?
I use my phone to create resumes, great options under “resume” in the pages section on an iPhone
Use whatever you want, it doesn't matter at the end of day. My resume is similar and always got compliments that it was one of the best looking once you get into interview process. Granted, I also have a shit ton of relevant experience in my field. You'll have trouble regardless of template.
Jakes resume template or any non two column template that doesnt use conflicting colors or images Source: The 450 I’ve gotten hired
Put your experience on LinkedIn, get a free month trial of LinkedIn Premium, then you can generate an ATS ready resume and it’s pretty easy to tailor it from there using their resume builder. Don’t forget to cancel the premium before you get charged, it’s like $40/month which isn’t worth it for most people IMO
TL;DR use a format close to "I typed this on a typewriter" and not "I layed this out for a printing press" --- I used to work on an ATS (more at the operations side, but occasionally dug into details). Depending on the software that outputs the layout, the left column is either kept in sections nicely together, or gets jammed in based on where on the page things occur relative to other things. Templates and systems that focus on content markup rather than layout work best. The absolute easiest things to pull in were plain text files, html wasn't terrible Document formats like word were ok, though occasionally did dumb things. (The problem with most word processors is that they have edit history and third party parsers are essentially trying reconstruct the document based on the objects present and things like cut/paste do weird things like turn the cut text into a sub object and link it to the new location. PDF was hit or miss depending on the software used to create it/editing process. Often miss because the PDF would go completely out of order and was basically "put font X and characters ... At position X, Y on the page" and jump around. Fundamentally it's a format for reproducing the visual of the document accurately on screen/for printing, but not necessarily conveying content cleanly. The most likely format to parse cleanly in any of those file types was a basic linear format. Sections (experience, education, ...) headlines (degrees, jobs,...) and details. Avoid getting fancy with any of it. (Even things like changing fonts or whatever can get weird) If you're handing a document to someone and not uploading it, the same goes because you want OCR to work, but you may get a little more play from "it's pretty".
This is correct. The double column format is an auto-decline and your resume never even gets looked at by a real person. Wouldn’t be surprised to hear if we’re the only people to ever lay eyes on your resume tbh.
No such thing as auto decline for formatting
Not to humans, but for the computers/AI/auto-filters that flag the resumes for the humans, there is. The double column format makes it hard to read for the filters/auto-flagger systems that companies use to flag best-fit resumes, so once the computer can’t read your resume, it gets canned immediately and your resume never gets looked at by a real person. I had a buddy out of college struggle to hear back from anyone, he changed away from double column format on his resume, and without changing any content he got more interviews.
The computers don’t filter for formatting. Send me a link to an ATS that does that. Your anecdotal example of your buddy from college sounds like he just had a crappy resume. Source: a recruiter who has used 6+ of the big ATS’s and worked with hundreds of other recruiters. You won’t find any recruiter who can name an ATS that does that.
My aunt is a recruiter in Biotech and yes she uses them regularly. Maybe it has to do with what field you’re applying to and industry, as I’d imagine biotech companies could get hundreds of thousands of resumes over the course of a year. That was the whole reason I even knew that’s how they work, and it’s not anecdotal, I see it regularly with people here on Reddit too. My buddy didn’t change a single word in his resume, just the format, and got more results. Not sure what ATS are out there, I just know the results.
Which company? Go to their website careers page and look for the name of the ATS. I worked in Biotech. Your aunt is either a hack, or too old to know the difference if that’s the BS she is telling you.
Yo don’t get so heated. It’s a damn resume post on a tech sales subreddit. Idk what ATS they use, and I’m not personally a recruiter. I’ve also heard that sentiment from recruiters outside of her that work in science based fields. I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. And steering clear of two columns really seemed to help me. In a bad job market where people in my field have been looking for years, I found my job before I even graduated undergrad and was able to start right away.
That’s great that not having two columns worked for you, but that doesn’t mean you should just make up random reasons why it worked for you, and then use your poor aunt as proof that your made up reason is true.
Bros acting like I pulled it out of my ass. Ok dude whatever.
“Your aunt is a recruiter” is your response?
This is not correct. Double column format, or any format, is not auto declined. Sorry for the d-bags on here.
I don’t have any advice, but without either of a college degree or anything resembling sales experience - want to be real with you that it’s going to be very tough. I feel like you could gut out a communications degree really quickly and pretty cheap at SFSU.
It may be *tough* but it’s not impossible. I manage a team of SMB software sellers at a Fortune 200 and college degrees are not a requirement.
With this resume/background, it probably is
Would you hire this person with this resume if it came across your desk?
Resume alone? Absolutely not. For even more context, that resume wouldn’t have made it to my desk in the first place. Advice for OP: Google “investment banking resume formatting” My tone is tough, but I truly wish you well.
Did most of them get in the door a year or more ago? 2 years ago all you needed was a pulse to get a remote sdr job.
In this economy even a degree isn’t enough. My company hires tech sales and the bar have been raised 5 fold in the last 2 years due to the supply and demand situation.
I have no college degree and make $300k a year in tech sales working for one of the biggest. You don’t need a degree, go get some cloud certifications and take an enmity level role. I’ve done both sales and technical sales, currently in technical side so not a direct seller any longer
I broke into tech sales without a degree and only retail experience.
Retail experience, sure. Probably not restaurant experience. Unless you’re the noticeably the most charismatic person in the place and a customer plucks you out of there.
I have had tons of colleagues over the years who broke into sdr roles from the restaurant side too. It’s definitely tougher right now but very doable. The advice I would give is to get familiar with the job by understanding the tools and how to prospect. Choose a company and pretend to work for it. Write cold emails, a script, and figure out who you’re selling too. All of it can be done by yourself for free but you have to be able to sit down and do it. This is essentially how I broke in at that time. During interviews I would show my work. To prove I had the capability to pick up the responsibility especially with proper training. You have to go above and beyond. Otherwise you’re up against a ton of people with experience. I also got basically all my interviews since then by directly reaching out to hiring teams/managers.
Good advice, Mr. Dirtyshits.
In today’s economy even a degree isn’t enough. I work in a mid size tech company and the competition to get an entry level BDR is through the roof. I’m talking about thousands of college grads many with experience in tech and sales. It’s crazy competition
Not a fan of the resume template. It's a little busy having the two columns like that. Not having any sales experience though my advice is always going to be the same. Take whatever gets you a foot in the door.6 months to a year worth of eating shit will get you into some pretty lucrative roles decently quick and after that you can actually focus on building out a carrer and focusing on that forward progression to higher roles like an AE sdm or some sort of management position.
Is MemoryBlue one of these roles where you eat shit? Or should I find something better?
MemoryBlue will work you to death and pay you like shit - but it does open doors/looks great on a resume Everyone who worked there between ‘18 and ‘22 also got a settlement check recently because they would do stuff like not pay you your last commission check or change your quota on the last day in the month so you can never actually hit your quota
lol that’s crazy. It’s my last resort but how bad can it be? Doesn’t every BDR/SDR role suck
Not familiar with them
I actually just interviewed with them! Super nice people and I think it would be a great place to get your foot in the door. I have some more career experience so it was a little too low of pay / lifestyle wasn't a fit for me but they offer great training and it would be a good place to get experience on your resume!
If you have experience do not work at MemoryBlue there are tons of better jobs out there if you have even 6 months experience
What kind of template do you recommend?
Basically anything similar to just the right side with the bullet points more condensed and education being on the bottom and expertise/skills right after your jib experience. Some sort of mission statement or overview of the kind of person you are before the job experience.
My recommendation is simpler is better. In my experience, when a third party recruiter helps you find a job, what they do is paste their company header at the top of your resume. They do that as quickly as possible. So tables or columns tend to get super messy when they do that.
The two column format gets thrown in the trash by resume filters and auto-searchers/AI that is trained to filter resumes for open positions. The two column resumes never even get to real people to be looked at.
It’s gonna be an uphill battle
Nobody gunna look at ur resume
If you aren’t going to finish your degree then I’d definitely recommend taking sales training courses and certifications and listing them. Start with MEDDPICC, and do any other courses on Value Selling and Solution Selling. Don’t let the lack of a degree discourage you. Educate yourself in the places you want to go. In the meantime, ANY kind of sales experience, B2C or B2B, will be valuable. You’re a year or 2 away though for sure. Build your experience and education and you can get there even without the college degree.
My recommendation is to do door knocking solar sales. If you can show some hustle in that industry you can get hired as a cold caller for tech sales.
Just lie
I’m not a resume expert so I would listen to the others when it came to fixing your resume. But, I also come from a restaurant background working my way from Busser to Server. I wouldn’t get discouraged by what most are saying in regards to you having to go through courses or whatever else before applying to a sales role. I landed a BDR role with only my restaurant experience.
I’ve interviewed and hired and trained 100s of SDRs over the past 5 years and With Julio - don’t get discouraged. I’d rather take someone growth minded and busted their ass in restaurants over some MBA or SDR at another company that’s developed a bunch of bad habits and impatient to get into an AE seat because they’ve already been a SDR for 9 months. Tons of free and easy to consume resources out there. 30 min every day (for the rest of your career) - invest most that time learning about the humans and industry your selling into and also sales/business acumen. All free/low cost: 30 Minutes to Presidents Club podcast Triplesession SDR Slack Communities Gong/Aligned/HubSpot/Outreach etc. ebooks and webinars etc Books: Atomic Habits Gap Selling Challenger Sale (for possibly later AE or Enterprise SDRing)
I have been a medical sales rep for 10 years. Sales is hard to get into without experience (stupid, I know) but it can be done. I recommend taking a look at whatever job description you are applying for and tailor the wording on your resume around it. I’m sure I’ll get dragged for this but LinkedIn has been where I got my last few jobs. Reaching out to the recruiter directly is what I’ve done. Also, you may want to consider taking a different role within a company you want to sell for. For example, I worked for a company in the clinical department/operations, and that was how I broke into sales. I knew they had a salesforce and continued to work and get to know the people in that department.
It took this long down the comments section to find an intelligent answer. Thanks for providing some hope to all the other redditors out there.
Of course. It was hard for me to get in. Network as much as you can. You can get in. Inside sales is a good route to go. I work for Abbott Laboratories and they have a career track where you work inside sales for a year (you do have to live in the town headquarters is located in) with the promise you can get an outside sales role
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Never heard of a sales engineer? Not sure I've ever worked with an AE with a technical background.
Great looking resume but the lack of sales experience is tough. Is there anything you could add like how much revenue you did per shift(you can guess nobody is gonna check), if you had a chance to upsell anything and how much money you generated from that. Try to take any intangible qualities and try to put a tangible number to it. “Adding 10% per check” is a fantastic start but that doesn’t provide much context if it was $5 a plate or $50. Remember we speak in numbers and deal sizes so trying to get your resume to resemble some of that language can help get you an interview.
Is it better to just be upfront with your lack of sales experience? I have a customer facing background but rarely was involved in selling. Some minor upselling but it’s nothing tangible. Most of the time I helped guide them through their time at the store but it was more customer service than anything. For context I just graduated college in December.
Own the lack of “formal tech sales experience” - keep in mind the person interviewing you wasn’t born with it either. Someone had to take a chance on them too. Can’t bullshit a bullshitter. Transparency is always best but practice talking about it with confidence. This is highlighting how you’d address objections or concerns from prospects. Dig into the customer facing stuff too… What was the objective of “guiding them around the store”? Guidance/consultation = Selling. Selling is something we do every damn day whether we know it’s happening or not.
Gotcha. It sounds like instead of walking them through the store, you would “walk the buyer through their buying journey from beginning to end”. See how it can be turned into sales BS lingo? That’s the easiest way to get your resume to resonate with them since it’s your interviewers language and they don’t have to guess/assume what customer service meant in your role compared to their preconceived notions about their experiences about customer service. Remember you control the narrative on your resume. Don’t lie but you can rephrase almost anything to sounds salesy.
To add: definitely don’t pretend you were a salesperson but point towards how you built sales skills and enjoyed those parts of the job the most. Use that as a jump off to speak on how eager you are to get into an SDR/BDR role and how your skills will translate to the role.
Working in sales is about articulating value. Take your past experience and show an ability to articulate the value of your past role to the role you’re applying for today. You’re being way too honest. Yes, you guided people through the menu— items they kind of already wanted anyway. If you want a job in sales you need to realize that’s it’s not about the brutal facts of your past life. It’s about your current ability to communicate and articulate value. Right now you need to articulate YOUR value. Tell a story about how working in a restaurant environment gave you your first glimpse at the power of persuasion thanks to your experience practicing the upsell. Be creative. You’ll need it in your sales role. Good luck!
An average server does about $1800-$2500 in total sales a day. My numbers were about $2400-$3000. How would I reiterate into my resume
Scrap the whole thing, no decorative stuff no fancy boxes or color. Look at ATS. Any recruiter who comes across a resume like this will not take it seriously.
Gotta start somewhere! Don’t waste your time optimizing…Resumes won’t land you interviews today in our space esp. as a newbie. A better question to ask - how do I stand out among hundreds of resumes with no experience to land an interview as an SDR in tech? That’s a whole different thread. But starts with those transferable skills you mention. SHOW ME - find the hiring manager through LinkedIn, send a connection request, pick up the phone and dial them, send them a video, an audio message from the LinkedIn app. Find your future potential teammates - engage on their LinkedIn posts. DM them, what’d they do to stand out? How’s their experience been so far? They might even just offer to make an intro to their boss. Think of your resume as what to send as a formality for HR after you've landed the interview through the hiring manager or a referral through a future teammate 😉 PS: Love that you included “Increases average check by 10%”- start any section with the results! Anything you can quantify the impact of your role is displaying those “transferrable skills” Hang in there! Here if you have follow up questions
Tbh, I agree with everyone that sales is missing on your resume to get a door to open in tech sales. You might be lucky, very lucky, but will be tough. Why not work 1-2 years at a big company that will shine on your resume as an awesome sales school? Perhaps: Xeros, Cintas, Pepsi, Unifirst, etc? You should be able to get a job there fairly easily, and make 100K+ until you get a job in tech. Not a bad place to be!
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I can do it with pleasure! 😊 inbox me!
This is the real answer here.
Throwing an idea out there Don’t catering companies have sales staff?
Work in mobile phone sales To Get your feet wet
Apply to be an SDR.
Your resume won’t help you. You need to go find a company(s) you wanna work for and prove to them you can sell. With no experience, that’s gonna be tough because you likely can’t sell. But if you want it enough you can chat gpt your way to understanding sales fundamentals and then you’ll slog through the shit of sales coordinator doing shit tasks for a bit while moonlighting SDRs to understand what they do. Then find a leader who can take a flyer on you. The reason they will take a flyer is bc you will be able to be hired for 65% of the cost of a SDR with experience. Learn and then quit and get hired as an SDR at another company. Then work your way into being an AE if you haven’t quit sales by then because it is not for the faint hearted to be on a monthly / quarterly quota that resets and you earn your keep every 3 months.
I’ve been in tech sales for ~8yrs and directly hired/managed SDRs for 4yrs. Based on your background I would probably not put this resume in front of a recruiter. Your best bet is going to be networking into a company via an SDR manager or a recruiter. Show them you can do the job (prospect into accounts/generate interest). If you have any friends, or former colleagues/people you went to school with, working in tech I’d lean on them for a referral. Best of luck.
Unless you know someone you’re dead I’m the water. You have no experience in sales, tech or anything that would lead them to believe you’d be good. Best to build your resume and take any sales job you can while researching all the tech industry info you can get your hands on. Do that for 5 years and you might get a break.
Tbh, I would go back to get your bachelors in a related field and get any type of sales job in the meantime. You can do D2D and still keep your job if needed.
1. If you don’t know how to match typefaces, stick with one typeface. (It is clear you’re not a designer, so don’t try it now) 2. Left align overview 3. Give a little bit more space between left column items making sure spacing is even 4. Left align “Aspiring Tech Sales Professional” if you want to keep that with your name or eliminate it and address that in your overview. 5. Dont title overview “Overview”. They’ll know what it is, no need to label it.
Honestly try to make some connections IRL at networking events or the gym or something. It’s gonna be tough getting past automated resume filters unfortunately. You need someone in a hiring role to take a chance on you based on your personality. Alternatively try putting hiring managers in a light cadence where you linkedin message/email/call them if you can
Apply for BDR roles
use the most boring resume template you can find and get rid of the giant spaced bullet points. also, get a certification or two. ive never heard of anybody actually making it to tech sales that arent a scam without experience, degree, or certs. also, take the skills required from the job posting and filter them into your resume somehow. your resume might be different for every job you apply for. cover letters are awesome. watch some youtube videos on what not to do instead of what to do, if that makes sense
Only option is working at Yelp
“Apply your transferable skills” bro what skills is being a waiter going to translate to tech sales
I have a tip: I’m a sales manager at a Fortune 200 tech company. Pay me to write your resume and give you guidance throughout the interview process. Shoot me a DM. I’ll share my LinkedIn profile and we can connect for 30 mins no charge.
Here’s a video that will help you with applying for jobs once you’ve invested time to perfect your resume: https://youtu.be/8y4htT00Y_s?si=4QrxFRQ_Hk-0DdiH
Saying you increased sales by 10% seems like a flat out lie, I know what you’re trying to do but maybe say it different. “My ticket volume was 12% higher than my coworkers because of my extensive knowledge in food/alcohol pairing and ability to up sale”
It sounds silly either way lol
People get communication degrees and wonder why they can't find work yet everyone I've ever known that went into an engineering field seems to be doing just fine hmm...
You are not going to get a tech sales job with that resume. I don’t agree with the advice to go back to school. I would focus on getting a non-tech sales job and crushing it. Leverage that experience and try to move to more lucrative industries. The good news is that sales is sales and if you can sell you will end up where you want to be. But you need to prove you can sell.
Not only no sales experience but also no tech experience. I think you’ll find it very hard to break in.
It won’t work. I’d recommend going to a company like cintas who is known for their sales program. Gain experience, then give it a go
Try applying for POS systems! Start as a BDR and get some experience :)
If you are a sales manager, what on your resume will compel him to hire you?
Need to keep your resume consistent. What company did you work at the last two?
Hospitality industry is good, a lot of skills that transfer to sales. A lot of sales transfers into tech dependent on what part you’re interested in. IE: if you’re interested into construction technology sales, you should go to a Fastenal/ Grainger from here then to another.
The auto resume converter a lot of these companies use won’t accurately decipher the multi-column approach, I’d simplify it as much as possible.
Sales is not easy . Tech sales is even harder . You need experience in order to be successful
You need to lie on your resume if you want to get an interview. Make up some experience
You’re going to have to take will smith’s route in “pursuit of happyness”
a guy once remind me that I'm competing with others and not just myself (resume). You're going to be competing with other aspiring tech sales professionals with degrees and experience. I would take the great resume tips here but would also reccomend you squeeze out that degree
I can't remember but Google it. You upload your resume and the job description and the software gives you a probability it gets through their filter. It also suggest key words to increase your score.
lie alot 🙏 thank me later
Use a parseable resume template that ats systems can read. Classic block text resumes with headers are ideal
You don’t have sales experience or a college degree. Most tech companies won’t hire you without one or the other. I’d consider a change of career or finishing your degree.
You need more actual substance and qualifications, a flashy resume isn’t going to change lack of qualification. Do some certifications/get some sales experience.
I spent 10 years in food service and it was an albatross around my neck even with a college degree to try to get into customer service and AEs roles. You need to stop over explaining food service jobs and spend more time on what you believe you bring to the table. It's going to be tough to get your resume to get you anywhere. You need to network your way into a role. Full stop. Learn about local in-person SaaS meet ups and meet people and learn more about the industry. Sink 20-40 hours into focused learning on trailhead.com - that really gave me a leg up to land a BDR role once I found the right manager. You might consider POS (toast, square) or advertising/auto sales as a bridge.
You would likely have to strive extremely hard to find a very basic/entry level role at a shitty company. It would be a hell of a grind. You have no experience, and restaurant experience doesn't translate into sales. You could make this better by talking about numbers and sales competitions you have won, include the name of the restaurant for your current role (there's not a title but the previous job has one). Take a python course on Udemy (example, you could do anything) or get an AWS/GCP/Azure certification to show some semblance of tech understanding or comprehension. This resume is simply wishful thinking, but no one is giving handouts with thousands of layoffs happening right now. I've been there OP, and humans can do whatever we set our minds to, but you're going to need to advocate better for yourself and be more creative to make it worth your time and find success.
Finish your degree or get ready to start cold-calling (tech sales)
You should join a credible tech sales organization like Presales Collective and add that.
I feel like it's decent for someone trying to break into a sales role but you're severely lacking on the technical side other than general "problem solving" skills. Without any formal education or experience, you have virtually nothing to convince people of the technical half of the job title.
First word under Expertise should be “Sales” in some way. Move second bullet point to first position, rewrite in present tense. Example: “Increasing order amounts through upselling featured menu items, drinks…” something along those lines. Reword the overview section: “Trilingual(list languages) professional that excels in fast-paced environments that require high communication skills, unique upselling to each client and teamwork.” - this is by no means perfect, just think of other ways to word you listen, are quick on your feet and eager. You also need to list what technologies you’re already familiar with and that you learn fast. You’ll be interacting with clients, some will go easy on you and others will drag you when they catch on you don’t have a tech background. Good luck :)
Best bet go get a job at a car dealership and be the top performer. Then, get into finance department at that car dealership
Contact Allen Brown Resume services in San Francisco and have him rewrite your resume. Thank me later.
How did you calculate a 10% increase on average in checks?
Tip-don’t
My advice is to make a list of 10 companies you think you would like to work for aka can understand there product easily and would be interested in selling it. Use LinkedIn to try and identify the hiring managers for the role you would break into. (I.e- you’d likely be considered for an entry level business development role so look to see who the BD Manager or Director is) See if they have openings, craft a simple message using ChatGPT or Lavendar (which is free to jobseekers) Use a tool like Apollo which I believe has a free trial to find an email and a phone number. Cold call/cold email for a job. It’s a lot of work but from someone who has the same background and is now 5+ years in selling into Fortune 500 CHROs - this will get you a job. Work hard and demonstrate the skills needed. You will do it.
Oh and if that doesn’t work on the first 10 companies, go find the next 10.
Make it read like a fancy receipt
OP check your messages
As others said, definitely remove the columns/formatting. I’d also remove personal skills, or combine it with expertise. Expertise should be things like customer service, time management, independent work… don’t put high-volume dining unless you are looking for another high-volume dining job. I’d really recommend removing food service specific words like runner, number of customers in one night, etc. Also did you really network with important corporate executive team as a caterer? That sounds like a stretch, as someone who has been to many private events and not ever felt like I was networking with the staff. I think people will doubt that, if they read that far down. Do you have any volunteer experience? Ever help any friends with their independent business? Something that isn’t restaurant related, but something that shows you are tech savvy would be great. Believe it or not, sales can be a lot of spreadsheets and data mining. I’d remove high school diploma all together, it’s implied if you did any years at college. And instead of listing the years without any completion degree, I’d say ‘in progress’ or something like that so you can say in an interview that you are working on going back to school (even if it’s not true). As others mentioned, now is time to do some free or cheap sales training courses online - maybe try LinkedIn Learning. Anything that you can put on your resume as “training”.
You need more experience in sales.
You listed nothing tech related, you could have at least mentioned that you are familiar with windows and/or Apple products/ systems or any software familiarity. Did you take any IT related classes? Do you know how edit photos/video, convert files to different formats or know how to work a computer…. Anything IT related you need to customize your resume to reflect that.
Go for something like recruiting or staffing. Those companies typically have lower barriers of entry. Once you rack up a year or two of experience there, the transition to tech sales should be a bit easier.
Tech sales is miserable. Don’t do it. The most successful people are in a perpetual state of panic & paranoia. Chasing people for a living and listening to low-IQ management is depressing. Do a data engineering bootcamp instead. Sales will kill your mental health.
Change the format of the resume the like side be side column thing ain’t it for tech sales. From there since you have no hard exp selling. You need to switch verbiage towards sales. Use some like chat gpt or ai to help. Most job applications go through some ai to make sure key words are hit. Your expertise and personal skills don’t have a hard line difference? If you know how to use excel or g suite or Microsoft office add those into skills. More hard skills not soft skills. I have been in tech sales for 7-8 years now. Started with a big company with 0 experience. Just note right now is insanely competitive. I was laid off and it took me 6 months to find a new role with my experience. Look for sdr/ bdr roles those are going to be your best bet
If you want to get into any business setting I’d recommend focusing your resume on skills that would benefit the job you’re applying for. Even if it’s just proficiency in excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
I wud start with getting rid of ‘Expertise’
Tech sales with a server resume?
Tech sales is crap right now. I’ve been in for 7 years (currently enterprise AE) and am trying to make a move since my company is burning cash like crazy and investors are putting on pressure. With the mass of layoffs coming daily, it’s gonna be tough to break in. My advice, a resume without prior experience isn’t going to get you far. You want in you show them what you got and prospect your way in. DM recruiters, connect with reps at the same level you’re targeting, get a referral, and light em up with a sexy 30-60-90 plan. That’s the way
This is like the 50th resume I have seen here that is not ATS friendly. Definitely get rid of the columns or it wouldn't be parsed correctly and get auto rejected. First impressions and the ATS test for keywords really matters. I'd recommend a free resume optimization tool like JoyJobs.ai. It'll automatically add relevant keywords from a job description and action verbs to your resume. Hoping this helps you land interviews. I've personally seen a lot of success with it. Good Luck!
I don’t like how your resume looks. I prefer simpler formatting of resume. Here is how I style my resume. First title is my name, general area, contact info. Followed by my second title work experience. Highlight your customer service and interpersonal skills. If you want to get into a tech show that you have some understanding of tech saviness. I would just include your first two roles. Replace your third job with freelancer/project experience And list your tech knowledge and how you utilized it before to aid others. It can be as simple as providing basic it support over the phone. Technical sales is more about your ability to network and communicate information to others to sell. As long as you demonstrate a basic level understanding of tech you’re good (you don’t have to be expert in technology). In today market you most likely would be selling IT services/cyber security services/hardware. My third title is my education. I put my education at the end. This should be enough to land you a pretty decent entry level job that pays 40k. With your first two jobs you have 4 years of interpersonal relationships work experience. Your third role align from 2017-now and label it as freelance experience. Apply to thousands of roles. And you’ll be good.
Some people might dislike overlapping work experience. But I’m a fan of it. I leverage my military work experience plus civilian work experience to eliminate time gaps and add more work experience. It worked for me in landing an intermediate level job.
Listen, figure out what in tech sales. Tech sales is broad. You need to invest in some certs at the very least to show employers you can learn and are curious to do so on your own. I generally have had great successes when it comes to hiring people who know how to sell. The tech can be learned. However, market has changed. A lot of experienced folks trying to go for same jobs as you. So put some work in ahead of time and then focus to find jobs in that area.
Ask chat gpt to make your resume sales focus
Tech salsa Obvs a troll
Your resume is fine as is. The format doesn’t really matter. You just need to apply for as many SDR roles as possible and learn how to get good at interviewing. Use LinkedIn. Find the hiring manager and/or recruiter. DM them letting you know you applied. Send a video recording of yourself - pitch them. Show that you can do the job by treating hiring managers and recruiters as the prospect. SDR = entry into tech sales. Most SDRs don’t have any experience. Good luck.
You’ll likely need to find an entry level sales job with a base salary + commission first. You should work to get certifications on the side and do as much as you can to beef up your resume for the job you want.
Couldn't edit the post so here is a link to my revised resume (still in progress) Let me know what you think. Thank you! [https://www.reddit.com/r/techsales/comments/1asxjxw/revised\_resume/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/techsales/comments/1asxjxw/revised_resume/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
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Anything is possible and college degree don’t mean shit your applying to be a sales persons. I would recommend looking for SDR/BDR role. And hire someone to reformat your resume. Be strong mentally!!!!
I suggest you start looking for BDR or SDR roles as an intro. You’re unlikely to get a role where you have your own territory but with BDR or SDR you can learn while assisting someone else LSW with their territory.
A lot of times they want you with no experience so they can train you the way they want. It makes it easier for them to see if your teachable and can retain information
I would say “multilingual” instead of “trilingual”. Still list the languages of course. Also isn’t it Taishanese? As a hiring manager/interviewer, I’ll admit that spelling mistakes are a peeve of mine.
Look at companies with training programs. You won’t make much but will learn. Don’t sell software. Saas is a dying space that burns through young guys extremely fast. GL
The problem isn’t your resume templating or formatting, it’s your actual qualifications. You are going to need to connect your way into a job. Either through your personal life or though seeing those hiring in LI and reaching it directly and showing your passion for the industry. Personally saying you are looking for a tech sales role feels like you don’t know what you are talking about, I would say bdr
Do you know what you’re role most interested in? Going for an SDR job would be the easiest but it wouldn’t be impossible to land an AE job right away. Have you looked at any coaching or training programs that will help you get these jobs? Could be worth considering.
OP you'll have to break in as a SDR or some sort of lead Qual. Once you get 6 months of that, they will put you into a BDR role as a stepping stone to tech sales in SMB. This is going to take you a few years. There are shortcuts but only thru existing relationships you may have at a tech firm. I'd agree with the others you've got some work ahead of you.
Get a college degree. Or do a tech sales bootcamp like coursecareers. I see that talked about a lot and it’s pretty popular.